PROLOGUE
Colt
READY.
A girl wearing a skin-tight, white top and a skirt so short her ass is showing points her manicured finger directly at me.
Same old, same old. You’d think they’d change how they start the races. Mix it up a bit, but no. Always the same routine.
Tonight, Chantel, the main organizer’s baby sister got the privilege. She’s turning eighteen tomorrow, and according to Curly, starting a race is a plausible gift. She’s smiling coquettish smiles, five feet from my hood, as she gets the crowd going.
The dry desert wind cuts through the night, breaching my car, every particle charged with palpable excitement. I can fucking taste the gasoline and the metallic tang of adrenaline in the evening air. Cars with neon underglows cast halos across the beaten airfield tarmac while people rush around, cash whirling from hand to hand with the speed of thought.
Thirty seconds left to place bets.
A cacophony of blaring horns, deep bassline, and chatter fills my ears. It’ll linger like an echo long after I get home. It always does.
A beefed-up Ranger with flame decals guns its engine. The exhaust’s roar mixes with the beat pumping out of its speakers—a background track for the girls dancing around it.
I fucking love it here.
Steady.
Chantel’s finger moves left to point at my opponent, Otis, sat at the wheel of his Supra.
It’s a sweet ride. Not as sweet as the custom V12 Camaro parked nearby, though, and not half as powerful. It has no chance against my Challenger, but that didn’t stop Otis running his mouth fifteen minutes ago, saying he’ll swallow me whole and spit me back out.
Wishful thinking.
Since I started racing almost three years ago, I only lost twice. Tonight won’t be the third. No, tonight, I’m taking Otis’s five grand and leaving it in the homeless shelter’s mailbox. I do that every weekend. Instead of hoarding the cash I don’t need, I choose between soup kitchens, homeless shelters, and animal rescue centers. They’ll make better use of the cash than I would.
I make enough in my day job.
Chantel lifts both hands, sending one last pointed stare at us before she drops her arms.
Go.
I floor the gas pedal immediately. The Challenger shoots forth, gaining speed faster than the onlookers can comprehend. Three seconds and I’m already a car length ahead of the cocky teen. He’s new here. Lacks experience, reflexes, and—by the looks of things—quite a bit of horsepower.
He could use a lesson in humility... a lesson I’ll gladly provide. Colt Hayes: self-proclaimed ethics teacher.
One, two, three: zero to sixty. Five, six, seven: one hundred miles an hour... Sixteen, seventeen: one-fifty on the clock. Half a mile in less than nineteen seconds.
Time to break.
I throw the car sideways, drifting around a metal barrel that marks the halfway point. Otis catches up with me on the drift exit point, but as soon as I press the gas, I fly forward.
Adrenaline courses through my veins, my heart pumps blood faster, and I feelalive.
More alive than I usually do.
I shouldn’t be here today. I should be at my parents’ house for the monthly get-together. My brother Cody made it abundantly clear I can’t be late because our older brother—he didn’t mention which—has some important news to drop.
It hardly matters. Regardless whose news, it’s definitely another wedding or pregnancy announcement. And that’s why I’m here, not there. That’s why I’m not impatiently awaiting the news like Cody is.
I dread the elated high that settles over the whole family whenever my brothers announce something big. The endless congratulations, cheers, and smiles...
Never aimed at me.
